Vesper

The power shift: Negotiating with Premier League stars whose deals are expiring https://theathletic.com/2232297/2020/12/01/premier-league-contracts-expiring/ The footballer in question is an established Premier League player earning more than £50,000 per week and open to signing a new contract. His club rate him, would like to keep him and are also prepared to give him a rise. There is just one problem and it is a potential game-changer: the player has less than seven months remaining on his deal. The fact that the clock is ticking means that the balance of power in the negotiations has shifted so far in the player’s favour that his agent feels in a position to ask for a huge wage-hike for his client — almost half as much again. At first glance, those demands appear unrealistic. Although the club fully accept that the player will have some reasonable options as a free transfer and increase his earning power, they cannot see anybody paying him as much as his agent has proposed. But what the agent knows — and the club know too — is that it will cost the player’s current employers an eight-figure sum to sign somebody else to fill that position. On top of that, there is no guarantee that the player who comes in will prove to be as reliable. All of which plants seeds of doubt in the minds of people at the club and means that they now find themselves seriously considering an option that initially felt like a non-starter — meeting the player’s salary demands. In short, they are backed into a corner. “It’s all about timing,” says a technical director at another Premier League club, reflecting on his own experiences in this sort of situation. “Some players will always slip through the cracks. But you should never let a player get into the last year of his contract who is a certain age, who you value. You’ve either got to sell them, or you’ve got to re-negotiate. “As soon as it gets into the last year of the contract, the demand from the agent and the player outstrips what you’re able to offer. If it’s a player who’s got four or five years ahead of him, the agent is looking at it, saying, ‘What’s it going to cost you to replace him? It’ll cost you £15 million. Well, instead of you spending £15 million, give my player £10 million and…’. Then you turn around and say, ‘Hold on, we can’t do that’. But the agent says, ‘That’s what it’s going to cost you to replace him’.” That sort of scenario is one of many that clubs will be dealing with over the coming weeks and months when they weigh up what to do with the players in their squad whose contracts expire at the end of the season, including the possibility of trying to sell one or two for a cut-down price in January. The number of footballers currently in this position in the Premier League is close to three figures and includes Liverpool’s Georginio Wijnaldum, Sergio Aguero and Eric Garcia at Manchester City, Shkodran Mustafi, David Luiz, Mesut Ozil and Sokratis Papastathopoulos at Arsenal, Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud and, remarkably, enough players to fill half a first-team squad at Crystal Palace. In some cases, clubs are resigned to the fact that a player has no transfer value and will remain on the payroll until his contract expires on June 30. But with many other players, clubs have a dilemma on their hands as they try to strike a balance between short-term success and long-term planning, including what works best for the manager and what makes financial sense for the business. “First and foremost, what is the player’s contribution like?” says the technical director, when asked what goes through his mind. “If it’s really good, like a Giroud, it’s a really, really tough call. You think: Why would I try and sell him in January? Why would we try and recoup a couple of million pounds when the value that he has to the team, one or two goals, might be the difference between getting in the Champions League or winning the league, or finishing two or three places higher, which is worth millions more. So some of it is a business decision. “You’ve got other situations where you just want to get players off the books and let them go — someone who is a bad egg, not contributing anything, always injured. If someone comes in and offers you a bit of money in January, you snap their hand off because you’re thinking, ‘We can’t get this player off the books quickly enough’. “But then the problem with that is quite often the agent and the player don’t want to leave in January because a transfer fee means they can’t command as much money for themselves. Sometimes the player is going, ‘No, no, no, I don’t want to be sold in January. I want to leave in the summer when I’m on a free, because that £3 million that the club was going to give you as a transfer fee, I’ll take that in the summer.’” Wijnaldum will certainly not be going down that path at Liverpool. Highly respected at Anfield among the staff and the players, there is no prospect of the Dutchman leaving next month. He is a mandatory pick, able to play in a variety of roles and an influential figure on and off the pitch. From Liverpool’s point of view, five months of Wijnaldum’s playing time is worth far more to them than a knockdown fee. The bigger issue revolves around the lengths that Liverpool are willing to go to keep Wijnaldum beyond this season, which is complicated by the fact that he turned 30 last month and, as it stands, will be one of the summer’s most attractive free transfers. Liverpool, in short, would need to make Wijnaldum one of the club’s biggest earners. Could some of that money be used to invest in a new, younger midfielder? Is it time to give Curtis Jones a chance to flourish? Either way, it is hard to believe that Wijnaldum’s situation has crept up on Liverpool, given the meticulous way that the club go about their business under Michael Edwards, their sporting director. A senior figure at another Premier League club is explaining how for many chairmen and owners it is all about managing risk when a player gets into the final year of his contract. To illustrate his point, he talks about an out-of-favour player at his club who is extremely well remunerated, almost certainly not going to be offered a new deal in the summer and already the subject of serious interest in January. “I think some people at the club would say, ‘Just let him go, get him off the wage bill.’ But if we get two or three injuries, then there’s every chance that we’ll need him to play,” the source says. “And if he’s not there and we lose three games in a row, the chairman will panic and there will be, ‘Why the hell did we sell him?’ We save a few million (by selling him) but if we get relegated it’s going to cost us £60 million.” According to one Premier League chairman, that sort of scenario comes up all the time, so much so that it leads him into a conversation about players who are signed and loaned at the start of the season purely as insurance policies. The sums involved — a £3.5 million package for a loan player who may end up hardly kicking a ball all season — will seem like madness to some but is deemed a price worth paying to provide peace of mind. Whether through new signings or player retention, managers always push for depth in their squads but there is a greater desire to stockpile players this season than ever before because of the global pandemic and relentless fixture schedule. Inevitably, that sort of thinking will influence the decisions that clubs make in January as and when any offers are received for players who are soon to be out of contract. The last thing that Newcastle United would have wanted to happen is for Dwight Gayle to leave on a free next summer (in an example of how important it is to move players on at the right time, Gayle was valued at £20 million little more than a year ago), but it is hard to see the club accepting a bid for the striker in January and running the risk of leaving themselves short of options up front for the remainder of the season. Newcastle could have sold Dwight Gayle for £20 million last season (Photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images) Although Manchester City are obviously operating on a totally different level to Newcastle, they are likely to hold on to Garcia for similar reasons. The Spaniard has made it clear that he has no intention of signing a new deal at City and is expected to join Barcelona, who had a bid rejected for him in the summer, when his contract expires. City will not back down when it comes to their valuation of the player, even if that means they end up getting nothing for Garcia, who has started two Premier League games this season and gives Pep Guardiola an important extra option at centre-back. Aguero is a different and unique case, bearing in mind we are talking about a player who will go down as one of the greatest in City’s history. Drawing comparisons with Vincent Kompany and David Silva, City said in the summer that it would be down to Aguero to decide when he leaves the Etihad. Although Guardiola has since committed his future to City, there is no indication that the manager’s decision to stay will have any influence on what Aguero ends up doing. For the moment, the Argentinian’s priority is to get back on the pitch. Giroud would like to do the same although, unlike Aguero, his lack of playing time has nothing to do with injury. Behind Tammy Abraham and Timo Werner in the pecking order at Stamford Bridge, Giroud needs regular football to have any chance of starting for France in the European Championship finals in the summer. As The Athletic reported last month, Chelsea are willing to consider allowing Giroud to leave in January as a reward for his service to the club. It feels like an unusual step for a club to take for a player who has not been with them that long (Giroud joined Chelsea in January 2018), but says much about how highly the striker is regarded as a person as well as a footballer at Stamford Bridge. “I do believe that a player’s contract should never go to the last year, as a policy. But I don’t think I am inventing the wheel. Anybody could agree on that. Normally the contracts of the players are for five years. You need to have a clear idea of what you want to do with that player when he is in the third year, at the latest.” That was Raul Sanllehi, Arsenal’s now-former director of football, talking in October 2018, only a few months after Aaron Ramsey had left the club on a free transfer. While Sanllehi was almost certainly right to think in that way, he was setting himself up for a fall by saying it in public. Privately, people in the game were staggered that Sanllehi came out with that statement, especially in an era of player power, and suspected it would come back to bite him, which it did. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had less than 12 months remaining on his contract when he agreed to a lucrative three-year deal in September 2020, a month after Sanllehi departed. Mustafi, who cost £35 million when he signed from Valencia, is set to leave on a free next summer. Sokratis, who cost £17.7 million two and a half years ago, will also be able to go for nothing. Then, of course, there is Ozil. The good news for Arsenal is that the best part of £25-30 million will be wiped off their wage bill come the end of this season. The bad news is that they have spent a fortune on those players in fees and wages, had a minimal contribution on the pitch in recent seasons (in total contrast to someone like Wijnaldum at Liverpool) and will almost certainly get nothing back in terms of transfer fees. The latter is a worryingly familiar story when you consider what happened with Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere and Ramsey before. Will Alexandre Lacazette end up being another name to add to that list? Lacazette has 19 months remaining on his deal, which means that he is in that sell-or-renegotiate window that is seen as critical to clubs when it comes to protecting their investment. Arsenal turned down a significant offer for the striker in the summer, when his market value would have been higher than what it is now. So what is the plan for Lacazette beyond this season? Assuming Arsenal don’t give him a new deal, will he be sold in the summer or allowed to go on a free 12 months later? None of this, it should be said, is easy. In Arsenal’s case, the huge amount of change that has gone on at senior level at the club in a short space of time — the appointments of a new chief executive and technical director, along with the exit of Sanllehi — certainly hasn’t helped when it comes to planning and decision-making. Arsenal have also had three managers since 2018. That kind of upheaval makes it much more difficult to develop the “really healthy alignment between business and football” that one Premier League technical director says is the key to getting the big decisions around management of contracts right — something that Edwards at Liverpool and Marina Granovskaia, the Chelsea director, have a reputation for being all over. Aside from Arsenal’s predicament, the current situation at Palace provides another interesting case study. They have 11 players out of contact, which is partly by design given that nine of them — Wayne Hennessey, Stephen Henderson, Joel Ward, Mamadou Sakho, Scott Dann, Gary Cahill, Patrick van Aanholt, Andros Townsend and Christian Benteke — will be 30 or older by the time next season starts. For many Palace fans, it probably feels like this team is coming towards the end of its cycle, and maybe that applies to the manager too. Hodgson, 73, signed a one-year contract extension in March that will take him through to the end of this season. What happens beyond then is anyone’s guess and, arguably, makes decisions over player contracts even harder for those who have one eye on the long-term. “A manager might be thinking, ‘I’m only interested in getting past this season because I’m being judged and getting paid on staying in the Premier League for this year. And I want this player because I know this player will keep me in the Premier League’,” says the technical director. “But then the club are going, ‘Yeah but he’s 31, 32, and we’ve got to be thinking about the next three or four years staying in the Premier League.” Asked whether, financially, it is game-changer for a player to leave on a free transfer as opposed to being sold for a nominal fee in January when his contract is running down, an experienced intermediary replies: “Yeah, but actually, it’s a game-changer for the agent, because the agent could go from getting, say, eight per cent of the deal to suddenly being able to say, ‘I want a fee of £3 million’.” To give an insight into how that works, he tells a story about an overseas player he was asked to close a deal on for a Premier League club. The player in question had six months remaining on his contract and the Premier League club thought they could get him for about £3 million, solving a problem position at their club immediately. The owner at the other end wasn’t willing to do business, however, and took the view that he would rather the player complete the season, even though he would lose him on a free transfer. With no deal in place before the window closing, a pre-contract agreement was signed with the player immediately afterwards. As the player would be joining on a free transfer, the club saved £3 million, plus the player’s salary for six months. The ball was then back in the agent’s court and he asked to split roughly half of that figure with his client in the form of his commission and a signing on fee, meaning that they both benefited from the free transfer and so did the Premier League club too. “I actually thought they could have asked for a whole load more,” says the intermediary. Ultimately, every club will do things slightly differently and it is worth bearing in mind that those dealing with the contracts will be working within the parameters that an owner sets. “Sometimes you’ve got money today and then not tomorrow,” the technical director adds. “Here’s an example. Apparently, one of the best at this is Mike Ashley at Newcastle. Mike Ashley goes, ‘Guys, there’s your money, that’s what it is in the pot, you aren’t going to get a penny more and you aren’t going to get a penny less’.” Some Premier League clubs like to add a one-year option to the end of contracts. West Ham United, in particular, favour structuring deals in that way because it allows them to retain control and to decide later in the season whether or not to trigger the extension. For the majority of players, though, the next six months is a journey into the unknown, with some standing to benefit a lot more than others once their current deal comes to an end. “Every one of these situations is a balance of power,” adds the intermediary. “It depends on who the club is, it depends on who the player is, and it depends on whether there is a market for him.”

Rejected by Reims to a force at Fulham – the rise of Frank Anguissa https://theathletic.com/2225848/2020/12/01/frank-anguissa-fulham-villarreal/ Six months into life in Europe, Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa’s dream of becoming a professional was hanging by a thread. The midfielder, 19, had arrived at Reims on loan from Cameroonian side Coton Sport, training with the French club’s academy. It was a monumental learning curve: a new country, culture, food and, for a player who had never been a part of a professional academy set-up, a whole new way of playing. As the season drew to a close, the hierarchy at Reims wanted to make a decision on his future. Anguissa had been recommended to the club’s president, Jean-Pierre Caillot, by friend and football agent Maxime Nana. The top goalscorer at the club, then in Ligue 1, was Cameroon international Benjamin Moukandjo, and Caillot was eager to tap into the Cameroon talent pool for their next potential star. His coaching staff were not convinced. At a series of meetings, the club’s head coach and sporting director made it plain that they felt Anguissa was not good enough and he was let him go. It was a decision they would regret. Anguissa would prove them wrong and in double-quick time. Within two years, he had established himself in the Marseille first team and two years after that, he featured in a Europa League final and was signed by Fulham for €30 million. Today, he is leading the club’s fight against relegation after catching the eye of Europe’s greatest suitors during an impressive loan spell at Villarreal last year. For his country, he is set to star for Cameroon at a home African Cup of Nations in 2022. This is the story of how he overcame rejection, going on to secure the faith of Marcelo Bielsa, become a “soldier” for Rudi Garcia and a then leading light for Javier Calleja in Spain, Toni Conceicao in Cameroon and Scott Parker in the Premier League. This is the rise of Anguissa. Before Reims, there was Yaounde. What made Anguissa’s transition to Europe all the more difficult was the fact that he hadn’t played for a professional team until joining Coton Sport, six months before he embarked for Europe. His football up to that point consisted of playing wherever or whenever he could, from the age of three. “It started in the street,” he told the documentary Le Coeur d’un Lion. “I would kick tin cans, an orange, a tennis ball, a small plastic ball, anything. Today, I only have good memories.” Anguissa grew up with his mother (Juliette), father (Louis), two sisters and three brothers. His family were well-known in the suburbs of the capital and his grandfather, Belibi, was the chief of their neighbourhood, which is called Anguissa. The young footballer would know all the hidden paths to open spaces to play football, every street corner and sandy pitch. At school, he would hone his skills on a small field outside of class. “Naturally, we had a problem,” said Roger Noah, president of one of Anguissa’s first clubs, AS Fortuna. “His mother did not want her boy to play ball because she wanted him to go to school. But he was firmly determined to play. Every day he would nag us to try and negotiate with his mum.” Anguissa had talent and that ability took him to the G8 tournament, held in Yaounde over a week-long period every year. It consists of eight academy sides, roughly 160 players, all playing each other in two groups of four. Then, after the tournament, scouts and sporting directors from some of Europe’s biggest clubs, including Porto, Villarreal, Torino, Lyon and Marseille, vote for the 22 best players. They then play each other in two matches, one on artificial turf to give a clear sense of their technical quality, and then at the national stadium. It was here that former Marseille scout Jean-Philippe Durand set eyes on Anguissa. “I travel a lot in Africa and with some contacts in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast, we organise tournaments with young players. During one tournament, I saw Frank play,” Durand tells The Athletic. “He was playing like a No 10. He was a very good player with the ball, but only playing when he had the ball. Never working in defence, but he was athletic and had good technique. So, after the first day, I went there and spoke with him, just explaining to him that in football, there are two different situations! Your team has got the ball, and the other team hasn’t got the ball. “The day after, it was the final of the two best teams with the best players. During the final, he was fantastic with the ball and without the ball. At the end of the game, I went and said: ‘OK, this guy is interesting, because when you explain something to him, he is listening, and learning very quickly’.” Anguissa was 16. For Durand, who has attended the tournament for 15 years, that capacity to listen and learn set him apart. The youngster had always been quiet, “reserved and collected”, as Noah put it. “As a little boy Frank, loved playing football,” his mother Juliette told Le Couer d’un Lion. “He was a little shy but he liked to listen”. The ability to take on new information and apply it is crucial for a player hoping to make the grade in Europe. “You need a strong mentality,” says Nana. “When you go to Europe, you leave your family, your friends. It’s a fight. You must be strong mentally.” Durand agrees. “My best test is to give a player some advice,” he says. “Just to see after if they change something regarding my advice, as Frank did. I saw some top players in Cameroon, and you can speak with them one time, two times three times, they never change. You cannot work with a guy like that. “When you will go to Europe, you will have different problems, with adaptation, with the food or with the way of training, everything. If he’s not intelligent enough to receive advice, and to change from the way of life that they have in Africa, he will not be successful.” Anguissa was voted the best player and after consultation with Nana and Durand, he joined Coton Sport. With Marseille keeping a close eye, he went on loan to Reims, which was a difficult experience. “It was hard for Frank, but a good learning experience,” a source close to the midfielder tells The Athletic. “It showed it wasn’t going to be gifted to him.” Reims did not have the patience to work and develop Anguissa, who was tactically a long way behind his team-mates. “In Reims, the trainers said to themselves: ‘We have young players who are practically ready, we don’t have time to teach certain tactical instructions to a guy from the village,” former Reims forward and international team-mate Moukandjo told sofoot.com “They didn’t give him a chance.” Durand secretly went to watch Anguissa play for Reims’ reserve side and after leaving the club, his agent arranged for a trial at Ligue 2 side Valenciennes. It took their coach David Le Frapper less than a day to decide he wanted to sign Anguissa permanently. “He said, ‘No, no, no I don’t want him on loan, I want a four-year contract — we can work with him’,” says Durand. “And at this time, I said, ‘Oh no! That’s not possible, Marseille had done all the scouting, all the work for the player, in one, two, three years, I think he will be a good player for Marseille’. But if he signs a long contract in Valenciennes, we will have to pay three, four, five million in a couple of years. So I said to his agent, ‘The best way is that he comes directly to Marseille’.” To sign for Marseille, though, they would need to convince their president, Vincent Labrune, but also their coach — Bielsa. “Bielsa doesn’t believe in names,” a source tells The Athletic. “If you work hard, and meet his criteria, he will play you.” With positive references, Labrune was persuaded, but to play for Bielsa, Anguissa would need a little more than just a recommendation. Anguissa quickly won the trust of Bielsa and became a key player to Marseille (Photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images) Anguissa was brought in and for two weeks he did extra work with one of Bielsa’s assistant, Diego Reyes. The aim was to see if Anguissa could be brought up to speed. All the training sessions were filmed for review. Anguissa, though, was not alone. Former Real Madrid, Chelsea and Arsenal midfielder Lassana Diarra faced the same treatment. After two weeks, a file was compiled and Bielsa made his decision — Anguissa was given a shirt number, and was in. “He signed a contract with a very low salary,” says Durand. “Labrune said the only thing that we want is that you train with the first team. Bielsa said, ‘OK, I will take him in the first-team group’. He started like that in Marseille, with a professional contract on the lowest salary of the top division. But after a couple of years in Marseille, he became a very good player, and even with a different coach, as we saw Rudi Garcia at the end, he was always in the first XI.” Bielsa took Anguissa under his wing. “He believed in me and said, ‘You have a lot of quality, I am going to put you in the group,” Anguissa later said in an interview with Canal Plus. “If a youngster has potential, he can surprise the world.” Almost immediately, though, Bielsa resigned due to a contract dispute, one game into the season. His successor, Michel, saw Anguissa’s qualities and handed him a debut in the Europa League against Groningen, two months after signing. An excellent assist for Lucas Ocampos in a 3-0 win showed that Anguissa was on the right track. “At the beginning, we saw that he was a very strong player, good in the air, a lot of physical qualities,” says Franck Passi, who was assistant to Bielsa and then Michel, taking caretaker charge after both departed, the latter for a six-month period. “So he was good for the level of the team. He had to improve, technically and tactically. In the training camp, he was here just to listen. He was a very good student. He started to really play with Michel and me.” Anguissa made 13 appearances during his first season, and under Passi and then Garcia from October 2016, he became a regular. “We had 14 players leaving the club, and we didn’t have money, we had just €2 million to make a team,” says Passi of the summer of 2016. “For Marseille that was really amazing. I took some players like Bafetimbi Gomis, Florian Thauvin and Clinton N’Jie on loan with a buy option because we had no money. At that time, Frank started to really improve his game. “The first day I put him on the pitch, I remember it was Angers, and I put him as a No 6 in front of the centre-half. He faced Cheikh N’Doye. He’s very tall, he was on loan from Birmingham City in England. That day, Frank did a fantastic job. At that time, I thought it was his position and still think it’s a great position for him. Because he has a lot of ability to cover all of the pitch, to tackle, to recover the ball. He thought he was a No 10 at first, and at the end, he was playing No 6 and No 8 (defensive and central midfield). For me, the job of Frank is fantastic from our 18-yard line to the 18-yard line of the opponent.” Passi points to the contrasting fortunes of another talented young player at Marseille, Zinedine Machach. Machach was a slightly more attacking player but both players were vying for the same spot in the team. Machach had the upper hand but Anguissa has flown highest. “I remember big competition between the two players,” says Passi. “It’s an important detail because I think Frank wanted it more than the other. He improved his game. He had more desire.” Garcia, now in charge of Lyon, elevated Anguissa again when he came in. By now, Cameroon had caught wind of their young star impressing in Ligue 1. The Indomitable Lions had qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon, to be held in January 2017, and called up Anguissa, only for him to turn them down. “Frank felt he hadn’t helped to qualify the team for the tournament and it wasn’t fair on the other players,” a source close to Anguissa says. “The second thing, was Garcia called him and said, ‘I know they want to take you to Gabon, but if you go, we are dead. You do a fantastic job defensively, and are the balance of the team’. “Frank didn’t want to let Garcia down, because he made him a key part of the team. His parents, the federation, everyone said you must go. He said no, ‘Garcia trusted me, I can’t let him down’.” Those who know Anguissa describe his very loyal character. But it would come at a cost to his honours list. Cameroon won the tournament. In 2017-18, Anguissa’s partnership with Luiz Gustavo in midfield at Marseille helped lead to success. “It was perfect,” says Durand. “Left-footed, right-footed. Very solid, very technical. It was top, and Marseille had a very good season when the two were playing together.” There was still a rawness to his game but his numbers, particularly in the defensive third as outlined by Smarterscout, underlined his potential. Smarterscout is a site that gives detailed analytics on players all over the world, producing a score between 0-99, a bit like the player ratings in the FIFA video games but powered by real data and advanced analytics. Fulham recognised his potential and swooped. They paid €30 million for the midfielder on deadline day before the start of the 2018-19 Premier League season. It would be a difficult debut campaign, one that offered little time to adapt and saw three different managers at the helm. Anguissa struggled without a pre-season with his new team and saw his campaign disrupted by an ankle injury in November too. It was only under Parker at the end of the season that he began to show glimpses of his talent. “When he went to Fulham, I thought it was just a step for him,” says Passi. “After six months, I tried to bring him to Monaco. I was with Thierry Henry and we needed a defensive midfielder. I called him to ask if he was OK to come on loan for the last six months but he preferred to stay at Fulham as the team weren’t doing well. “It’s difficult to judge a player when a team is relegated. If Frank is playing in a team with good results, he will be sure to show to English people what a great player he is.” After the club’s relegation, it is understood that Anguissa told the club’s medical staff that he would see them next year in the Premier League on leaving for a year in La Liga. At Villarreal, his reputation was only enhanced. “Last season, he was outstanding,” former Villarreal manager Javier Calleja tells The Athletic. “He is ambitious and has all the qualities to be a top player. The thing that stood out above all was his professionalism. He always tried to bring the best from himself. “My first impression of Frank was his physical condition, but when he went onto the training field with his team-mates, I was struck by his ability to conduct play, link up the play and his capacity to play box to box. “We realised he complemented perfectly the central midfielders in our team, Santi Cazorla and Manu Trigueros. He did the physical work, he won duels, he understood the technical and the tactical side, which gave the side presence and allowed us to dominate games and gave us character in the middle of the pitch.” Anguissa played a slightly different role, one that was dynamic and reliant more on his technical ability on the ball as well as his defensive work. His composure in possession and impressive dribbling skills helped transform Calleja’s side from shock relegation contenders in 2018-19 to European challengers as Villarreal finished fifth. Calleja believes that Anguissa’s best position is not as a lone defensive pivot. Instead, his manager last season says Anguissa operates best in a two, or as a box-to-box midfielder. “He has the ability to influence the attacking play and cover ground and enter the second phase of the attack,” says Calleja. “It limits him to play him too defensively. He is solid and intense in his defensive work, though.” His form, which at one stage saw Anguissa register better dribble success rate numbers than Lionel Messi, led to reported interest from Real Madrid. Concrete or otherwise, Anguissa was one of the best performers in the division. “As a professional, he works hard and is a good team-mate,” says Calleja. “He is capable of being a complete central midfielder. He can explode more in an attacking sense and constructs play and wins duels. When he was on the bench, it hurt him like everyone but he went about it in a good way. He is an excellent person. “One of the things he can improve is to demand and believe in his ability to create. He can do that with goals and assist. Little by little, he is growing in confidence that he can help the team in this way.” It was during Anguissa’s loan spell at Villarreal that Cameroon coach Conceicao, appointed in late 2019, began to work with the midfielder for the first time. The challenges of international football mean the Portuguese coach has limited time with his players. For Cameroon’s clash with Cape Verde in November last year, for example, some players arrived on the day of the game. So for Conceicao, he relies on key players to, as he puts it, “hold the dressing room together”. Anguissa has quickly become one of those players. “In my individual talks with the players, I understood that he was in fact a very loyal person, upfront in terms of saying what goes through his mind,” Conceicao tells The Athletic. “He is one of those five or six players that every dressing room needs. They are really the spirit of the team. He’s one of the captains, and during the last match against Mozambique, when Vincent Aboubakar was subbed, he took on the captain’s armband. As such, he’s the extension of the coach’s voice on the pitch.” That role will be all the more important for his country in the coming months, as Cameroon prepare to host the delayed African Cup of Nations. After their most recent victory over Mozambique, a game of no consequence as Cameroon are automatic qualifiers for next year’s tournament, Conceicao recalls how fans lined the streets to celebrate despite the game being held behind closed doors. The manager believes pressure is something that motivates Anguissa as opposed to holding him back, something that bodes well for Fulham. “He’s a quality player,” Conceicao says. “In football, the collective is the most important, so you have to have players that work for the team. And although Anguissa is not a Messi or Ronaldo, he’s a player that has a lot of capacity to influence the match. He brings a lot of tactical culture and rigour to the team. “He has got a really good passing ability, long and short, and is one of those players that makes the team tick without necessarily being the standout. As a coach and with all due respect to Fulham, which I know is a great club, Anguissa can reach an even higher level.” Anguissa now has his sights set on helping to lead his country to glory on home soil, and building on a positive season with Fulham. Those comments by Conceicao about his ability were not made in isolation. The people The Athletic spoke to for this piece all agree; he has the potential to play for a top team. Villarreal were keen to make his loan move permanent, and there was considerable interest from other sides playing in European competition, including AC Milan. But Fulham were able to push back on that interest, helped in part by the financial impact of the pandemic, which prevented any satisfactory offers being made, as well as resistance at the Cottage. “The question was asked about letting him go, but Tony (Khan, Fulham’s director of football operations and vice-chairman) said: ‘We need him to come back because we are in the Premier League’,” says a source close to Anguissa. “We’re sure we didn’t make a mistake (when he was first signed). I think he has top potential — after last season, I’m even more sure of that! “He has a very good relationship with Parker. He likes him. He trusts him, that’s why he will fight to do the job for the coach. “When Parker arrived (as manager in 2019), everything changed,” Anguissa said in an interview with Canal Plus. “He gave me… I don’t know, I’ve never felt that before. He gave me so much confidence. “Before a match against Liverpool (March 2019), he called me into his office at around 11 o’clock. He said to me ‘Frank, for me, you are a top player and today I want you to show the Premier League the player that you are’. Even today, every time I hear that phrase, I get goosebumps.” Anguissa has since shown that he can play at a higher level, and those close to him believe he can easily fit into a top-four club in England or abroad. But it is understood that he knows his performances at Craven Cottage will dictate his future. “He must show he can help and fight like a soldier,” adds the source. “To help his club to have the best season possible in Premier League.” For Fulham, the fact he has stayed has given the club a major boost in their battle to avoid relegation. He is a standout performer; of players to have played more than 500 minutes, he ranks sixth for ball recoveries per 90 minutes this season, while only Adama Traore, Allan Saint-Maximin and team-mate Ademola Lookman have averaged more successful take-ons than his 3.76 per 90 minutes. As he showed with an imperious display against Leicester City on Monday night, he is proving to be influential at both ends of the field. He is quickly becoming a player Fulham and Parker cannot do without. His Premier League importance seems a long way from that first rejection at Reims. They must still wonder about what might have been. “I am delighted for Frank, he deserves it,” said Reims president Caillot, speaking to Canal Plus shortly after his record-breaking transfer to Fulham. “We didn’t have experience of players from abroad like that. We lacked patience. If Reims had been able to make a small amount of money that would have been good, but too bad. You have to pay in order to learn.”

Imagining Jose Mourinho’s Arsenal https://theathletic.com/2229858/2020/12/01/jose-mourinho-arsenal-tottenham/ There is another timeline. A timeline in which, when Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur meet in the north London derby on Sunday, Jose Mourinho emerges from the tunnel not with a cockerel on his chest, but a cannon. In that timeline, Mourinho leads out a team with Mesut Ozil installed as key playmaker and captain, with a 39-year-old Zlatan Ibrahimovic leading the line. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is not wearing the white of Tottenham, but patrolling the Arsenal midfield alongside Thomas Partey. And David Luiz is long, long gone. Hold your nose, grit your teeth and wonder: just what might a Jose Mourinho Arsenal side look like? When Unai Emery found himself coming under substantial pressure as Arsenal head coach in October 2019, the name of Mourinho was loosely linked with the post. As it was, circumstance prevented us from finding out how real any interest might be — nine days before Emery was sacked, Mourinho was appointed at neighbours Tottenham. Many fans were relieved. The idea of Mourinho as Arsenal manager was anathema to many. His association with Chelsea and Manchester United, as well as his pernicious war of words with Arsene Wenger, have made him persona non grata at the Emirates Stadium. For these supporters, Mourinho at Spurs was a perfect match made in hell — the club’s most despised manager in the dugout of their most loathed rivals. There were dissenters, though — fans so desperate for an upturn in fortunes that this was a Faustian pact they were prepared to strike. Those blasphemous voices were quietened when Arteta lifted the FA Cup. At that point, the team appeared to be on an upward trajectory. Fortunes have changed somewhat since then: Arsenal now appear to have hit a wall, and Mourinho’s Tottenham are riding high at the top of the Premier League. It’s impossible to know how a different manager might fare with this squad, but it is nevertheless an entertaining exercise to explore. So how might Mourinho have tackled the Arsenal job? The PR battle Imagine the press conference. The preening, the smirk, the backhanded compliments about his predecessors. Mourinho might have the media eating out of his hand, but his first task would be to try and win the minds (the hearts being surely beyond reach) of the Arsenal supporters. An easy win might come when assembling his backroom staff. He’d want someone alongside him on the bench with cult status at Arsenal, someone with whom the supporters immediately identify. Fortunately, there was someone on the Arsenal staff already primed for such a position: Freddie Ljungberg. Although Arteta took Ljungberg on as part of his staff, he spent matches watching from the stands while the Spaniard consulted with his assistants Steve Round and Albert Stuivenberg on the sidelines. Mourinho might have chosen to bring Ljungberg into his inner circle to help build a bridge between his staff and the supporters. The star “Mesut is a massive player for this football club. As I said before, what I want is to understand how they are feeling and what they need. Of course, he’s a massive player. I work with him and I know when he clicks, what he can bring to the team. It’s my job to get the best out of him.” It’s easily forgotten now, but these were the words Arteta said about Mesut Ozil in his first Arsenal press conference. The likelihood is that Mourinho would also have sought to rehabilitate Ozil’s Arsenal career — although potentially with greater success. Mourinho and Ozil share a strong bond. The former Real Madrid manager is one of the few coaches to have struck the delicate balance between carrot and stick required to get the best out of the playmaker. In his autobiography, Ozil recounts an episode that demonstrates Mourinho’s demanding management style. Real were leading Deportivo La Coruna 3-1, and Ozil returned to the dressing room at half-time expecting praise. Instead, he was met with a barrage of criticism. “You think two beautiful passes are enough. You think you’re so good that 50 per cent is enough,” Mourinho is reported to have said. When Ozil responded by throwing his shirt on the dressing room floor, Mourinho bit back again. “Oh, are you giving up now? You’re such a coward. What do you want? To creep under the beautiful, warm shower? Shampoo your hair? To be alone? Or do you want to prove to your fellow players, the fans out there, and me, what you can do?” Ozil has admitted the incident forced him to reconsider his performances, and he subsequently produced the best football of his career. The pair spent three years together in La Liga, with Ozil scoring 19 league goals and making 54 assists. Ozil then joined Arsenal, and when he was criticised during his first season in England, Mourinho rode to his defence, demonstrating a nuance to his understanding of the player. “I learned with him because we were together for quite a long time, that he’s a very sensitive boy,” the coach explained. “He needs confidence. He needs trust. He needs to feel that people are with him. When he’s on the pitch, every time he touches the ball, the ball goes beautiful.” There is a myth that Mourinho is not willing to tolerate classic playmakers. Ozil, along with Deco at Porto and Wesley Sneijder at Inter Milan, would beg to differ. Mourinho might be one of the few managers around with an understanding of how best to motivate and manage Arsenal’s mercurial No 10. The new arrival Ozil isn’t the only expensive singing Mourinho would have sought to settle immediately into his team. In the winter of 2019, Nicolas Pepe was experiencing a difficult first few months since his club-record move from Lille. Pepe is a player Mourinho knew well. Shortly after the Ivorian joined Arsenal, the coach told Sky Sports: “Last season after I left United, I went a few times to Lille because my friend is the coach there (Christophe Galtier) so I know quite a lot about his qualities. “They were playing 4-4-2 and he was the right-sided player. He knows how to defend — to play in the 4-4-2 as the right winger, you know how to defend, not only that area but also the inside. “He does that very well. When he has the ball and also without the ball, he is very effective and very direct. He’s very cool in front of the keeper and I think this boy has fantastic potential. If they are to play three in midfield with him, Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at the front, looking to the movements, I think they can make it a real force.” Mourinho’s best teams have tended to feature dangerous goalscoring wingers. At Chelsea and Tottenham, Arjen Robben and Son Heung-min have been particularly effective exponents of cutting in from the wing. Pepe, at least in theory, fits the template. There would still be Pepe’s adaptation and acclimatisation to consider, but in that respect, Mourinho might have had an ace up his sleeve. When he joined Tottenham, he immediately recruited 30-year-old Joao Sacramento as one of his assistant coaches. Sacramento’s previous role was at Lille, where he would have worked alongside Pepe. Perhaps between them, they could have found a way to unlock his potential. The transfer market In the January 2020 transfer window, Arsenal were not in a position to make signings that required substantial fees, hence agreeing to loan deals for the defensive pair of Pablo Mari and Cedric Soares. But Mourinho might have had his eyes on another January signing; one available on a free transfer. Would he have dared to make a move for the out-of-contract Zlatan Ibrahimovic? Mourinho’s teams have tended to have a pivotal centre-forward as their spearhead — the “Drogba” role. A year ago, Mourinho dismissed the idea of signing Ibrahimovic for Tottenham on the grounds they already had Harry Kane. Neither Lacazette nor Eddie Nketiah, however, quite fit that physical profile. Ljungberg would probably require some convincing given the pair’s turbulent history — Ibrahimovic called his former Sweden team-mate a “prima donna” in his autobiography — but the veteran striker would also offer Mourinho a valuable dressing room lieutenant. He would be a pair of eyes and ears among the players. He can still play too, as his 10 goals in six Serie A appearances this season suggest. This whole exercise is, of course, a flight of fancy, but for those among you who’ll say the idea of Arsenal signing an ageing player, with history at a rival club, on a highly lucrative contract is just plain unrealistic, may I present Exhibit A: David Luiz. And Exhibit B: Willian. It’s entirely plausible that some of Arsenal’s other transfer business would have played out the same. Willian is a player Mourinho admires enormously. Arsenal’s interest in Thomas Partey, for example, dates back to at least 2018 — it was driven as much by the executives and scouting department as by any coach. Similarly, Brazilian centre-half Gabriel had been watched extensively by the club’s scouting department for a full year before he moved to London. Both Partey and Gabriel fit Mourinho’s model: powerful, athletic players in the spine of the team. Arsenal scouts had also watched Hojbjerg at Southampton, with some senior figures particularly keen on the player. Perhaps Mourinho would have insisted on adding the Dane alongside Partey. Of course, it’d be impossible to make those additions without allowing a few players to leave. Mourinho sold Luiz to Paris Saint-Germain after just 12 months together at Chelsea, and it’s difficult to imagine him urging the club to trigger Luiz’s renewal clause during Project Restart. Luiz and Mourinho have ideological differences when it comes to the art of defending, with the coach looking for a more “pessimistic” approach from his centre-halves. “That is not just Mourinho (who likes defenders to be pessimists),” Luiz has admitted. “In Brazil, they say it, too. ‘Defenders must be pessimists’. I cannot be that. I am an optimist in my life. I’m positive. I always think and dream of the best things.” It’s possible Mourinho would also have been more receptive to PSG’s overtures for Hector Bellerin — another defender perhaps regarded more highly for his technical quality than his defensive nous. It’s possible Mourinho would also have been more receptive to PSG’s overtures for Hector Bellerin (Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images) The team Mourinho’s Spurs currently line up in a back four with two screening midfielders in front. In recent matches against Manchester City and Chelsea, we’ve even seen those two midfielders drop in to form a “back six”. Partey and Hojbjerg would carry out the same roles in his Arsenal team, with the Ghanaian covering the channel between centre-half and right-back, and the former Southampton man on the opposite side. Mourinho once described Kieran Tierney as “a young Monreal” and “a good character”, and he’s inevitably a likely starter. Tierney is also a good fit for Mourinho’s multi-functional approach. At Spurs, Ben Davies has occasionally been asked to tuck in as a third central defender, much like Tierney has at Arsenal. At right-back, perhaps the athleticism of Ainsley Maitland-Niles would appeal to Mourinho. With Luiz gone, Gabriel’s most likely partner would be Rob Holding. Mourinho’s teams typically defend deeper, which would suit the former Bolton Wanderers centre-back’s style. Could he have been “the new Gary Cahill”? We can but dream. Had Bernd Leno suffered the same injury he did last season, and Emiliano Martinez been granted a run in the team, one wonders if Mourinho would have reached the same conclusion about the destiny of the No 1 shirt. Martinez is arguably the more commanding penalty-box goalkeeper, a trait Mourinho tends to favour. He also likes the option to go long and hit the striker early, something Martinez’s excellent distribution facilitates. Ahead of the defensive unit, we find a front-four diamond — a shape Mourinho employed at Inter and more recently at Spurs. Ozil would be creator-in-chief, with a winger on each side. To the right, Pepe, and to the left, Aubameyang, most likely. Mourinho is not known for indulging callow youngsters, so the chances are Bukayo Saka would not be exposed to quite so many first-team minutes. If Mourinho asked Samuel Eto’o to play on the left wing, he’d probably ask the same of Aubameyang. Last year, Mourinho laid out his vision for the Arsenal attack: “Aubameyang probably likes to play in the middle because he feels if he’s in the middle, he can score more goals. But maybe he can score as many goals playing on the left. What happens at Liverpool is Roberto Firmino drops back, drops in between the lines, and then he gives more space for Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane to attack these diagonals. I would see Aubameyang playing on that left side of Liverpool and scoring a lot of goals. “At Arsenal, Lacazette doesn’t have that quality, but they have options. One is to play with two (sitting midfielders) and one No 10 that can feed the three without bringing Lacazette in between the lines.” So it would be Pepe and Auabmeyang either side of a centre-forward — or perhaps a timeless Ibrahimovic would edge out Lacazette. How different would it be? Mourinho is a reactive coach who tailors his team to each opponent. For the majority of his reign, Arteta appears to have had a more defined shape and way of playing, even if it’s one that hasn’t always proved successful. However, the two coaches do share some traits: there appears to be a strong emphasis on structure, shape, discipline and counter-attack. With similar groups of players, it’s possible the results would not be substantially different. The main difference between Tottenham and Arsenal at present is that Spurs have found chemistry in attack. Perhaps a lot would come down to the Ozil situation. Arsenal desperately miss a creative playmaker, and if another coach could coax positive contributions from the German, it might unlock the attacking potential of this team. That may, of course, be easier said than done. The key thing Mourinho has in his favour is obvious: experience. He has hit rough patches before and endured. His reputation may not be what it once was, but he does at least have a track record to call upon. Arteta must prove to himself, as well as his players and supporters, that he has what it takes to come through his difficult period. It remains difficult to imagine Mourinho at Arsenal. Him joining Tottenham is presumably the final nail in that already snugly-sealed coffin. Nevertheless, this weekend’s north London derby will force an inevitable comparison between the two managers. Win, and Arteta will quieten some of the doubters. Lose, and those few renegades may once again whisper: “What if?”

Sevilla’s Joan Jordan on Lampard’s influence and almost joining West Ham https://theathletic.com/2231676/2020/12/01/joan-jordan-sevilla-chelsea/ Late in October’s opening 2020-21 Champions League game at home to Sevilla, Chelsea manager Frank Lampard would have recognised the danger as the ball dropped towards the edge of his team’s penalty area where visiting midfielder Joan Jordan had arrived unmarked. To Lampard’s relief, Jordan’s swerving volley flew just a few inches too high, and the game at Stamford Bridge finished scoreless, setting both teams on the way to dominating Group E ahead of outsiders Rennes and Krasnodar. Speaking before tonight’s return at the Estadio Sanchez Pizjuan, which will likely decide which team wins the group, Jordan tells The Athletic the former Chelsea midfielder might have had himself to blame had he found the net in their first meeting. “I remember watching quite a lot of Lampard when I was growing up, he was a top, top, top player,” Jordan says. “What really sticks is how the way he arrived late into the box, that was spectacular. It is something very difficult, that he made look easy. I watched him a lot, many of his games. He finished each season having scored lots of goals.” Former Espanyol and Eibar player Jordan, who joined Sevilla in summer 2019, says he grew up watching the Premier League. His two big influences were Lampard and his long-running England team-mate, but club rival at Liverpool, Steven Gerrard. “I remember Steven Gerrard too, talking about the Premier League,” he says. “He and Lampard were standout players, especially when they got forward, arriving from the second line. I always looked at all the little details I could, from many different players, to become a more complete player myself.” Catalan-born Jordan grew up during an era when Spain had many incredible midfielders, although he enjoyed watching world-class players from across the world. “Zinedine Zidane was always my idol,” Jordan says. “He was just different to everyone else, with spectacular class. But then I focused on many different players — from Sergio Busquets, through Xabi Alonso, different types of holding midfielders. Then Xavi, Andres Iniesta, David Silva, many midfielders, above all those who brought such success to Spain. I try and take the best from everyone as there are moments in the play when you must attack, or when you must defend, or when you must take up the correct position on the pitch. I watched many midfielders as I was growing up, and I still do today. I watch a lot of football. Why not learn from the best?” Jordan nods when The Athletic puts it that his style does not fit a tiki-taka template but is actually closer to the traditional English “box to box” of which Lampard and Gerrard are examples. “In a Spanish 4-3-3, I would be more an eight, although I can play as a 10,” he says. “I like to have plenty of space and freedom, to help in attack but I always like to defend and help my team-mates. Football is evolving and everyone has to run, everyone has to sacrifice themselves and adapt to different functions that a coach asks for. I try and be the most intelligent possible on the pitch, tactically, to pick up the best positions between the lines, to do damage to the opponent. So, yeah, I like the idea of ‘box to box’, to reach the opposition area, but also to get back and help in my own. That is my style of play.” Such strengths to his game means that Jordan could well already be playing in the Premier League, with Lampard’s first club West Ham having come very close to signing him in July 2019. After coming through the ranks at Espanyol, Jordan spent 2016-17 on loan at Valladolid in the Segunda Division, then really came to prominence during two seasons at Eibar in Primera. He racked up 10 goals and eight assists, in a team where everyone also had to pull their weight off the ball. West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini liked what he saw, and the contract offer was very attractive. However a phone call from Sevilla sporting director Monchi led to a last-minute change of mind. “I was very close to moving to England, I had an interesting offer,” Jordan admits. “But then Monchi called me, and I stopped everything with the Premier League. The project here, and the club, was very interesting for me. On a financial level, I lost out a bit, as we all know that the financial level in the Premier League is spectacularly strong. But I wanted to come here, to improve as a player, which was my objective. Maybe if I had moved there (England), I trust a lot in myself, but I don’t know if it would have gone so well.” The decision was quickly vindicated as he settled in as a regular starter in a new-look Sevilla team put together by Monchi and coach Julen Lopetegui, who was also interested in helping develop the “box to box” nature of his game. “Julen is such a professional, he spends 24 hours a day preparing for the next game,” Jordan says. “It is amazing. He wants me always to be close to the zone where the ball is. I help to bring it out from the back, he asks me to sacrifice myself in defence, and then with the ball that I get forward and arrive in the box. The biggest difference is that he wants me to be closer to the opposition penalty area, always wants me to have more shots.” Taking his place in a well-balanced midfield three alongside ex-Manchester City holder Fernando and playmaker Ever Banega, Jordan played all but a few minutes in a linking role as Sevilla finished fourth in La Liga last season, then eased past Roma, Wolves, Manchester United and Inter Milan to win the Europa League trophy (again). “We ended up at a very high level the three of us,” Jordan says. “Fernando is a spectacular player, he is 33 but it seems he is 27 or 28. He gives us so much. Ever has an impressive talent, and can cover a lot of the pitch with the ball. So you have to be intelligent and pick up another position that the team needs. This year he is not there, but maybe I will take on more of that job. I could see that I was reaching a good level last year, especially after the lockdown which was psychologically hard for everyone. Winning the Europa League helped a lot with confidence, as without confidence all players are vulnerable.” The new campaign has brought more significant progress in Europe for Sevilla, so often dominant in the Europa League but less successful in the biggest competition. Lopetegui’s team came very close to upsetting Bayern Munich in September’s UEFA Super Cup, then followed the commendable draw at Chelsea in their opening Champions League group game with three straight victories to book their place in the last 16. Domestically their form has been mixed – Lopetegui’s side outplayed Barcelona in a 1-1 draw at the Nou Camp in early October, then lost three consecutive La Liga games just as their Champions League campaign was getting going. “In the Super Cup we showed we had the mentality to compete in a game against Bayern,” Jordan says. “We played very well and it was a pity. We left the Nou Camp feeling we could have won. Although we have a deep squad, it is true that sometimes we have played games with less than 72 hours of rest and that would take it out of anybody. I wouldn’t say that playing in the Champions League has been a negative, but it will be difficult to repeat what we did last season. We must be relaxed about the situation. The season is very long and we will be up near the top for sure.” A run of three consecutive La Liga victories has seen Sevilla climb back up the table to fifth position, and they have a better points per game record so far than either Real Madrid or Barcelona. The big two’s struggles have opened up La Liga this season, with Real Sociedad currently the surprise leaders. “At the moment, we are not marking ourselves any objectives for the end of the season,” Jordan says. “If you think so far ahead then you lose energy, we just want to go and win each game. We have a lot of ambition, although we know that Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have great financial power, there is a big gap to the clubs on the next step. We trust a lot in ourselves, and have a very good squad, but we do not think too far ahead.” Another objective for Jordan is to break into the Spain national team set-up, where other midfielders including Mikel Merino of Real Sociedad and Sergio Canales of Real Betis have been given opportunities recently by La Roja coach Luis Enrique. “The national team is a personal objective I have always had, I am a very demanding and ambitious person,” Jordan says. “To play for Spain is one of the biggest things there is, but my head is in Sevilla. If I do things well here, on an individual and collective level, then for sure it can happen. I hope sooner than later, but I am not thinking any further than the day to day at Sevilla.” Back at the Sanchez Pizjuan, there is also an understanding that at least some of last season’s Europa League winners will move on, sooner rather than later. Sevilla rejected a €65 million offer from Manchester City for defender Jules Kounde last summer, while other top Monchi captures such as Lucas Ocampos and Diego Carlos also have admirers elsewhere. Under contract at Sevilla until 2023, Jordan says that leaving last summer would have been very early within this current group’s development. “On a collective level we have still more room to improve,” he says. “We can have a very exciting year. We have some great players, a very deep squad, with young players and also experience. There are players who are improving. Kounde, Ocampos, also Diego Carlos who might be 27 already but is still young. This season with Sevilla in the Champions League for sure we will all improve. I am delighted to form part of this group, but with the ambition to keep growing and improving, individually and collectively. My head is in Sevilla, we have a very exciting season ahead of us, I have many years on my contract and am very happy here. The aim is to keep improving here, and I know I can do that.” The most obvious area where he feels he can show this improvement would be adding to his goals tally. He scored two match-winners in two of his first four games for Sevilla but despite regularly getting into threatening positions has not found the net since. “Last year I know I did not score many,” he admits. “I believe I have a very good shot, and must take advantage of it a lot more. I’ve been working hard on arriving more in the second line, getting into the right areas, but just lacked that bit of luck. But I know if I keep working like this, the chances will come, and so will the goals. I am one of those who wants to go day by day, game by game, that is what makes you improve as a player, and have better successes individually and collectively.” Tonight’s return against Chelsea brings another opportunity for Jordan to put into practice what he has been working on. Given the opposition, it could be perfect timing for his first goal of the season. Lampard – and his players – cannot say they have not been warned.

when we get Rice I want to see this old Mou treble winning (at Inter, including the CL) formation dusted off and shoved up some unsuspecting teams' arses 4–2–1–3 Formation The somewhat unconventional 4–2–1–3 formation was developed by José Mourinho during his time at Internazionale including in the 2010 UEFA Champions League Final. By using captain Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso in holding midfield positions, he was able to push more players to attack. Wesley Sneijder filled the attacking midfield role and the front three operated as three strikers, rather than having a striker and one player on each wing. Using this formation, Mourinho won The Treble with Inter in only his second season in charge of the club. As the system becomes more developed and flexible, small groups can be identified to work together in more efficient ways by giving them more specific and different roles within the same lines, and numbers like 4–2–1–3, 4–1–2–3 and even 4–2–2–2 occur. Many of the current systems have three different formations in each third, defending, middle, and attacking. The goal is to outnumber the other team in all parts of the field but to not completely wear out all the players on the team using it before the full ninety minutes are up. So the one single number is confusing as it may not actually look like a 4–2–1–3 when a team is defending or trying to gain possession. In a positive attack it may look exactly like a 4–2–1–3.

Jude Soonsup-Bell, the Chelsea kid who can’t stop scoring https://theathletic.com/2231610/2020/12/01/soonsup-bell-jude-chelsea/ When Jude Soonsup-Bell was in primary school, his classmates decided they had to come up with a new rule if their friend was going to continue to play football with them in the playground. “Jude was only allowed to play with his left foot,” his mother Hannah tells The Athletic. “They couldn’t get the ball off him if he had it on his right foot.” How Barnsley Under-18s side must have wished they could have come up with a similar stipulation before they faced Chelsea’s exciting academy striker in the FA Youth Cup last weekend. Soonsup-Bell scored four times to help secure an 8-1 victory, the first Chelsea player to achieve the feat in the tournament since Roger Bill 59 years ago. Being prolific over the course of 90 minutes is not an unusual occurrence for the 16-year-old. Last season he scored 26 goals in all competitions for various Chelsea youth sides in just 17 appearances. So far this campaign, he is the joint-top scorer in the Under-18 Premier League with 11 goals. He is also making a name for himself at international level, scoring a hat-trick against Spain during an under-16s match earlier this year. Indeed he is England’s second-highest ever scorer at that level, alongside Jadon Sancho, with six goals in seven appearances. To put it further into context, Sancho’s Borussia Dortmund team-mate Jude Bellingham found the net three times in 11 games when he represented them. This is a player who has already captured the attention of some of Europe’s biggest teams and is being closely watched. It is understood various club scouts are ranking him among the best forwards within his age group and not just in the UK. No wonder Chelsea are putting things in place to ensure Soonsup-Bell signs his first pro contract when he turns 17 in January. They are still smarting at Jamal Musiala being lured away by Bayern Munich before agreeing professional terms and see Soonsup-Bell as a footballer of similar potential. There was one strike against Barnsley in particular which showed why they rate him so highly and had the club’s fans buzzing with excitement as footage was shared on social media. After sprinting on to a through ball from Harvey Vale, the forward sprinted past and then cut inside a bemused Barnsley centre-half on the byline, drew keeper Archie Brown and, as more defenders converged, he back-heeled the ball into the corner. With strict restrictions put in place over how many could attend the fixture because of COVID-19, only father Mike was at Chelsea’s academy stadium in Kingstonian to see it. “I was going crazy (when he saw the goal)!” he says. Hannah was trying to keep up with what was happening back at home, which was not an easy task with one-year-old daughter Rosie to look after. A loud yell from one of Jude’s two elder brothers, Ruben, who was watching the match online downstairs, grabbed her attention. “I heard Ruben shouting, ‘Oh my goodness! Mum, come have a look at this’. I came running with Rosie from upstairs and he showed me Jude’s backheeler. It was a great moment.” The family have grown accustomed to seeing their youngest son do something out of the ordinary with a ball at his feet since he was a toddler. The eldest Zac and Ruben showed great promise too, but Jude had a knack of stealing the limelight. For example, the two older boys were playing at a kids’ tournament in Calne, the Wiltshire town in which they live. While that was going on, Jude was off to the side of the pitch having a kickabout with other children who had come along. Hannah adds: “Jude was only about four or five. I remember a man coming up to me asking, ‘Is that your son over there?’ He pointed to Jude playing with some boys in the corner. He said, ‘He’s just scored 13 goals against my 13-year-old son and my boy was trying!’ That man watched Jude’s matches for a while after that because he was so amazed by it.” It was Swindon Town who noticed Jude’s ability first. Ruben was already part of their academy, but the younger sibling caught the staff’s attention as he played next to his father and was asked to join in. A contract was signed when he turned nine. Mike had hopes of becoming a professional footballer himself when he was growing up. He was also at Swindon as a teenager and attracted interest from Manchester City and Everton at one point, but a career never materialised. Naturally, he wanted more for his sons and Jude showed a great hunger to learn. Mike reveals: “I’d ask him, ‘Can you do this trick?’ He’d then go out in the back garden and wouldn’t come back inside until he’d done it. If I told him to go and do 2,000 keepy-uppies he wouldn’t come back until he’d done it. He was that determined.” There was another reason for that. Every child has a footballer they idolise growing up and Soonsup-Bell’s choice was the embodiment of hard work, as much as skill. “It’s Cristiano Ronaldo,” Mike and Hannah say in unison after being asked who their son admires most. “If you go on Jude’s phone,” Mike continues, “there’s a picture of Ronaldo. Whenever he is on YouTube he looks at Ronaldo. He is always studying Ronaldo. That is who he loves. He had the Real Madrid kit when he was younger because of him.” By the time Soonsup-Bell had turned 12, Mike could see his son was developing so fast, he needed a step up from what Swindon could provide. Trials were arranged, with Swindon’s permission, at Chelsea, Southampton and Reading. After just a few sessions, Chelsea had already seen enough to offer terms. Swindon, who had hoped to keep him because he was still under contract, were paid an undisclosed sum in compensation. “Chelsea got themselves a bargain,” Mike says with a chuckle. Not that it was all smooth sailing to begin with. Like his dad, Soonsup-Bell initially saw himself as an attacking midfielder, but one Chelsea coach saw it differently. “He was put in defence once in a game against Manchester City,” Mike says. “I had to go in and say something to the club. I told them, ‘You can’t play Jude as a defender, he’s frustrated. You have to play him higher up the pitch. The higher you do, the better he will be’. The next game they played him as a striker and since then they haven’t looked back.” Neither has Soonsup-Bell. One Chelsea coach has described Soonsup-Bell’s approach to finishing as “ice cold”. He doesn’t overcelebrate or get carried away. It’s about getting the job done, simply taking one chance at a time regardless of whether it’s his first or third of the contest. That doesn’t mean he is lacking in emotion. After being used as a substitute in the semi-final, Soonsup-Bell was disappointed not to get on during the FA Youth Cup Final defeat by Manchester City last month. His first start in the competition was against Barnsley for the 2020-21 competition and he wanted to prove a point. To further demonstrate how focused he is, it is understood the teenager is using the achievements of former Chelsea youth strikers as a target to beat. Current first-team striker Tammy Abraham had a record of 72 goals in 102 appearances for Chelsea Under-18s, Under-19s, Under-21s and Under-23s between 2013-16. Dominic Solanke, who is now at Bournemouth, scored 65 in 83. Like with all academy prospects, the threat of Chelsea signing other prodigies in the same position is always there. At the start of the year, the club paid a reported £539,000 to Tromso for 16-year-old Bryan Fiabema. “He is not worried about the competition,” Mike insists. “It’s good to keep Jude’s feet on the ground, to have competition,” Hannah interjects. “He doesn’t say anything negative about other players. He said to me, ‘I really can’t stand parents who say things about other players because we are all in this, trying to get there’. He will never say anything bad about anyone.” There are others showing good progress ahead of him too. Take Armando Broja, for example. The 19-year-old is doing well on a season-long loan at Vitesse Arnhem, so too is 22-year-old Ike Ugbo at Cercle Brugge. If Jude continues his rapid progress, the plan is for him to try and go out on loan himself when he reaches 18. Before my conversation with the proud parents comes to an end, the origin of Jude’s surname comes up. Hannah wanted her late Thai father’s surname Soonsup to live on as she is one of four daughters. “In Thailand, the name means ‘wealth centre’ or ‘become rich’,” she explains. Jude certainly has a wealth of talent.

Wednesday December 2 2020 Matt Law's Chelsea briefing Success of expensive left-back will help convince club to support Lampard in future transfer windows By Matt Law, Football News Correspondent Ben Chilwell could be key to Frank Lampard’s hopes of landing his long-term midfield target Declan Rice. Rice remains at the top of Lampard’s Chelsea wish-list, although a January move looks unlikely given West Ham United’s strong start to the season. Chelsea did not end up making a bid for Rice in the summer transfer window after West Ham put an £80 million price tag on the England midfielder’s head. That price is unlikely to drop and there remains significant caution within Chelsea over spending such a large fee on a player the club let go as a 14-year-old. There was similar reticence from some quarters over paying £50million for a left-back in Ben Chilwell but Lampard rejected all the potential alternatives. Lampard believed that Chilwell would offer Chelsea value for money by giving them a long-term solution to a problem that had re-emerged almost every season and that looks to be a wise move. Given that he personally pushed so hard for the signing of Chilwell for such a high price, the success or failure of the 23-year-old was always going to be an important factor for Lampard moving forwards. So it is particularly significant that Chilwell has started his Chelsea career so encouragingly and appears to have finally solved the club’s problem over trying to properly replace Ashley Cole. Should Chilwell continue his excellent form, then Lampard will be in a much stronger position to urge the Chelsea board to spend big on Rice. Lampard was prepared to sign Thomas Partey as a cheaper alternative to Rice, but he eventually joined Arsenal. And it now seems likely that Lampard, as he did with Chilwell, will push against any suggestions to go for a cheaper option to Rice and try to convince Chelsea that he too can make a big impact at Stamford Bridge. N’Golo Kante has rediscovered his best form, but the France international will celebrate his 30th birthday next year and there must be some concern that his incredible stamina cannot last forever. Jorginho is also in his late 20s and it still seems likely the Italy international will at some stage return to Serie A, particularly if former Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri returns to work. Chelsea do not have a natural defensive midfielder coming through their ranks who would be ready to step straight into the first team, meaning Lampard will push hard again for Rice and hope Chilwell’s good form convinces the board to trust his judgement once again. Get in touch at @Matt_Law_DT or via [email protected].

good, if we do not go for Zakaria, I want him to stay out of the EPL he would add so much to our direct rivals

'What a player!' - Chelsea fans send defiant Malang Sarr message to Frank Lampard Chelsea loanee Malang Sarr played a key role in helping Porto hold Manchester City to a goalless draw in the Champions League https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/players/malang-sarr-chelsea-porto-transfers-19382293 Manchester City dropped points in the Champions League for the first time this season as they were held to a goalless draw by Portuguese giants Porto this evening. Despite City believing they had done enough to seal a fifth win from five group games with eight minutes to go when Gabriel Jesus found the back of the net, VAR chalked the goal off for offside, meaning Pep Guardiola's troops were forced to settle for a point. Though VAR was a major talking point for the second night in a row, after it was heavily criticised in the aftermath of West Ham United's 2-1 win over Aston Villa on Monday evening, some of Chelsea's supporters found a different topic to discuss: centre-back Malang Sarr. The defender produced a solid defensive showing to help Porto record a clean sheet and keep the likes of Raheem Sterling, Ferran Torres and Phil Foden at bay. As well as that, Sarr also helped the Primeira Liga outfit extend their unbeaten run in the Champions League to four matches. The 21-year-old Frenchman was one of seven big-name signings to join Chelsea in a memorable summer transfer window but the club felt it would aid his development if he was sent out on loan to gain more first-team experience. In early-October, the former Nice youngster was snapped up by Porto, joining the Portuguese outfit on a season-long loan. Since arriving at the Estadio do Dragao, Sarr, who is a France Under-21 international, has racked up seven appearances in all competitions for Porto, helping the club secure five clean sheets. With that kind of form in his sails, and his age suggesting that he will only get better and better, Chelsea fans have expressed their desires to see him handed a chance to impress at Stamford Bridge upon his return to the club next summer, with one supporter suggesting that he "can't wait" until he pulls on a Chelsea shirt. Here is how some supporters have reacted to Sarr's performance on Twitter... Some fans have been left that impressed by Sarr's performance that they are baffled as to why the Blues are being linked with adding another centre-back to their ranks with Sarr already on the club's books. Recently, Bayern Munich defender David Alaba has been closely linked with a switch to west London as his contract at Bayern is poised to draw to a close next summer. West Ham and England ace Declan Rice, too, continues to be linked with a move across the capital, with some suggesting that he could be transformed into a centre-back because of Frank Lampard's extensive midfield options.

and for historical purposes here is the first lad (we have already contacted Barca about buying him) that we are now blocked (even if the deal was agreed to) from buying due to these fucked up Brexit shit rules Alejandro Balde

Rennes slash asking price for Man Utd, Real Madrid target Camavinga https://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/rennes-slash-asking-price-for-man-utd-real-madrid-target-camavinga-4349773 Rennes have cut their price for Eduardo Camavinga. AS says Camavinga is available for just £45million. The Rennes star, 18, is free to leave the Ligue 1 side with just 18 months left on his current deal. Manchester United are known to be big fans, with doubts growing over Paul Pogba's long-term future. But Real Madrid are also in the race for Camavinga, with Juventus keen too. The youngster was previously thought to be available for £68m. But Camavinga reportedly sacked his agent in a signal of intent to join a new club. And with time rapidly expiring on his current contract, Rennes are apparently happy to let him depart for a more reasonable £45m.

Xavier Mbuyamba: 'Hunger to succeed has never been so big' after long-term knee injury https://www.si.com/soccer/chelsea/news/chelsea-youngster-xavier-mbuyamba-pens-emotional-message-on-social-media-after-knee-injury Xavier Mbuyamba has penned an emotional message as he continues to recover from a long-term knee injury. The 18-year-old defender joined Chelsea back in August after leaving Barcelona's academy. However his move to England didn't go smoothly, as in September he had 'routine key hole surgery to clean up his meniscus', however it has left him on the sidelines for months - a similar problem to Billy Gilmour's. He started his recovery in September and is continuing his rehabilitation back to full fitness. Penning on his social media on Friday afternoon, Mbuyamba revealed the heartache and journey of his injury which has seen him sidelined for several months. "Imagine being an 17 year old boy from a small city in the Netherlands who all of the sudden gets the chance to live his dream life of becoming a pro-footballer. I know many of you think I have it all right now...the money, attention and best players in the world around me. I can't blame you, because to a certain extend I thought the same. "This summer it was time for me to make the transfer to the club that stole my heart in the first place, a place where I could see myself grow and flourish into the player I believe I can be. Chelsea Football Club. "I was ready to give it my all, to put all of my heart, blood, sweat and tears into it. Now imagine...your second training and...SNAP! There goes your knee in the blink of an eye. A torn meniscus so no football for at least 4 months. Here I was with all I thought I had, but it turned out to be worth nothing in that situation. I got surgery and started rehabilitation. Away from home, away from family, friends, and not even knowing how things would turn out. It was up to me to prevent my mindset from snapping like my knee did. "I remember all the days of feeling like I couldn't do anything. The first months of rehabilitation started and day in day out I was at the physiotherapist, the gym, on the massage benches. One day after the other, they all seemed the same. I haven't touched the ball on a pitch in ages which may have led to me loosing a bit of my feeling for the ball but I gained so much more and thats all represented in this one thing: THE SCAR. "This scar to me represents my hunger which has never been so big, my mental strengths which made me trust myself in this process, the power I gained in the gym over the last months, the pain after surgery and during treatment afterwards, the people that where there to help me, the friend and family I could always talk to and a constant reminder of my beautiful journey so far. "The story of that boy from a small Dutch city seemed so perfect so far...the boy who came up out of no where and made it big. That boy has learned and grew a lot wiser. I now see that only imperfections can lead to a perfect story. That what I see when I look at the scar."

Raging on this Brexit induced BULLSHIT fuck EVERY SINGLE LEAVE VOTING CUNT this shit puts paid to us ever developing our own great young non-homegrown players want a great young foreign player? well get ready to spend perhaps as much as 20 times (or even more) what we might have paid for them when they were youth go back and look at our academy's non homegrowns for the past 15 year plus now ERASE THEM (future versions of them)

New Premier League transfer rules confirmed as clubs learn post-Brexit regulations Premier League clubs have learned the new rules regarding transfers post-Brexit, which includes the fact that they will no longer be able to sign highly-rated foreign teens under the age of 18 https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/premier-league-transfer-rules-brexit-23100024 Premier League clubs will no longer be able to sign foreign youngsters under the age of 18 after after post-Brexit transfer rules were confirmed on Tuesday evening. Clubs will also be restricted to just three overseas signings under the age of 21 from January onwards, and only six foreign players per season moving forwards. At a time when the likes of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich are snapping up Europe’s best stars at increasingly young ages, it puts Premier League clubs firmly behind the eight ball when it comes to landing the game’s best teenage talent. The simple fact is, it could cost them millions. It will also see the Premier League elite increasingly raid the academy systems of lower league English clubs - which is devastating news for those clubs, given the compensation afforded is never really fit for purpose.

Man Utd and Chelsea among clubs considering transfer swoop for Brighton's Ben White The Seagulls defender has impressed in the Premier League so far this season and is attracting interest from a number of potential suitors https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/man-utd-chelsea-among-clubs-23100022 The 23-year-old centre-back has been an ever-present for the Seagulls since returning to the club in the summer following his successful loan spell at Leeds United last season. Despite speculation linking him with a permanent switch to the Whites in the last transfer window after he helped them win promotion to the Premier League, he ended up staying at the Amex. And according to Sky Sports his impressive recent performances have drawn interest from a number of big teams. It is not yet clear whether any of them will make a bid in January or wait until next summer.

I wonder if the bindippers make a move for Sarr this coming summer they were very close to signing him this past summer he is tracking to 23 to 25 goals produced (11/13 goals, 11/13 assists) for Watford (over a full seasons minutes, which he may not hit) this year, granted in the Championship Jota was Plan B, as report explains Liverpool chase for £50m star Watford winger Ismaila Sarr was initially ahead of Diogo Jota in Liverpool’s hunt for a new attacking signing, according to a report. Date published: Thursday 5th November 2020 5:22 https://www.teamtalk.com/news/jota-klopp-plan-b-report-liverpool-ismaila-sarr-chase Jota arrived at Anfield amid question marks about how he would impact the Reds’ front three. However, he has smashed expectations, with seven goals in 10 games. Indeed, he displaced Roberto Firmino in the team on Tuesday and has sparked a debate about whether he should do so again against Manchester City on Sunday. Liverpool wanted Senegal winger Sarr before moving onto Jota. The 22-year-old, a year younger than Jota, made waves for the Hornets in the Premier League last season. In fact, he was a shining light for the Hertfordshire club amid their relegation. Following on from his displays – one of which saw him score twice to sink Liverpool – the Reds reportedly had a watchful eye on the winger. Moreover, he was their main target before Watford’s £50million price tag put the Anfield club off. Liverpool then looked towards Jota, who the club had followed for some time. They agreed an initial £41million deal, with Wolves willing to accept flexible payment terms. Indeed, the Reds will only pay 10 per cent of that fee in the first year of his contract, which – at this rate – is likely to be an incredible debut campaign for the Portuguese. snip

would love to draw Porto as that allows us to see Malang Sarr in action against our steamroller

so if the 17 foreign players allowed drops to 13 we should be in good shape as multiple ones of our 17 are ones who need to go anyway dumping Baba, Emerson, Alonso, Willy gets us to 13 and we still have to dump Kepa, and maybe Rudiger (surely he needs to go whilst we can still get a nice chunk of change for him) and for sure Jorginho so that gets us to 10 meaning 3 open slots Malang Sarr would be one (if he doesn't go out on loan again, he looked great tonight versus Shitty and he can play LB too) so two open slots obviously no place for Bats, nor Miazga, nor Zappacosta, nor Danilo Pantic nor Kenedy nor van Ginkel nor Lucas Piazon also by the start of the 2023-24 season (at the latest), Kante (probably), Thiago, Azpi and Giroud will be gone as well so IF Sarr becomes a full time 1st team Chels player, and all the ones listed are gone we have 6 open spaces down the road (2 or 3 years max) 5 if Kante stays The one I do not know about is Havertz, as he is an U21 so he may count against us, in which case reduce by one the available numbers summer 2023 (other than fucking Kepa) is also the latest any of these contracts are expiring

lol, my sisters birthday is November 5th

I want this win for my birthday prezzie!!!! we celebrate our birthdays on the 4th as wifey is born a few days after me, so the 4th is in the middle

and it keeps him away from Manure

they have another one too, out on loan Kamil Grabara

please

this one ate all the pies